GIFT  OF 

~  Richardson 


University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


*  >  % 


LEADING  INCIDENTS  IN  THE  LIFE 


OF 


HENRY  CLAY 


HIS    PATRIOTISM,    STATESMANSHIP,    AND 
ELOQUENCE 


Bn 

BY 

ERASTUS    BROOKS 

Before  the  NEW  YORK  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,  April  6,  1886 

AND 

Before  the  PENNSYLVANIA  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,  May  14,  1886 


Firm  in  the  right,  implacable  to  wrong, 

*    *    He  knew  no  North,  no  South,  nor  East,  nor  West 
But  the  whole  country  held  his  patriot  soul, 

And  wore  it  like  a  jewel  on  her  breast. 

—ANN  S.  STEPHENS. 


NEW  YORK 
TROWS   PRINTING  AND   BOOKBINDING  CO. 

201-213  EAST  TWELFTH  STREET 
1886 


LEADING  INCIDENTS  IN  THE  LIFE 


OF 


HENRY  CLAY 


HIS     PATRIOTISM,    STATESMANSHIP,    AND 
ELOQUENCE 


Sn  Hfcbress 

BY 

ERASTUS    BROOKS 

Before  the  NEW  YORK  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,  April  6,  1886 

AND 

Before  the  PENNSYLVANIA  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,  May   14,  1886 


Firm  in  the  right,  implacable  to  wrong, 

*    *    He  knew  no  North,  no  South,  nor  East,  nor  West 
But  the  whole  country  held  his  patriot  soul, 

And  wore  it  like  a  jewel  on  her  breast. 

— ANN  S.  STEPHENS. 


NEW   YORK 
TROWS   PRINTING  AND   BOOKBINDING   CO. 

201-213   EAST  TWELFTH   STREET 

1 886 


LADIES  AND   GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY 
OF  PENNSYLVANIA: 

I  am  asked  by  your  society  to  recall  some  of  my 
recollections  of  HENRY  CLAY — the  great  "  American 
Commoner/'  as  he  was  for  so  many  years  called  and 
known.  This  service,  while  it  is  for  many  reasons  a 
very  pleasant  one,  is  for  other  reasons  the  source  of 
sadness.  Henry  Clay's  fame  and  fate  recalls  the  story 
of  the  fabled  Titan,  who,  notwithstanding  his  many 
gifts  to  mankind,  was  doomed  to  suffer  many  agonies. 
Unlike  so  many  public  men  of  the  present  day,  he 
was  never  rich,  and  almost  his  only  possessions  were 
those  which  belong  to  great  self-denial  and  to  the 
highest  character.  My  special  interest  in  him  was 
the  natural  result  of  his  great  kindness  to  young 
men,  and  to  me  especially  when  a  very  young  man 
—a  kindness  beginning  in  the  winter  of  1835-36,  the 
winter  of  the  great  December  fire  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  and  of  the  suspension  of  specie  payments. by  the 
United  States  Bank,  events  leading  to  important  legis 
lation,  special  and  public,  the  former  for  the  relief  of  the 
merchants  who  suffered  most,  and  the  latter  to  financial 
legislation  affecting  almost  every  form  of  business,  and 
which  in  time  gave  to  the  country  a  more  national  cur 
rency  and  one  wholly  free  from  the  controversies  of  the 
present  time. 

The  .time  named  was  when  the  country  was  repre 
sented  in  the  two  Houses  of  Congress  by  a  class  of  men 
some  of  whose  names  will  survive  as  long  as  the  coun 
try  lives.  What  Patrick  Henry,  John  Marshall,  the 
elder  Adams,  Jefferson,  Hamilton,  and  Madison  were 


as  civilians  in  one  era  of  the  country's  history,  were  the 
names  of  Clay,  Webster,  and  Calhoun  in  another  gen 
eration,  and  close  on  to  this  period  were  the  names  of 
Lincoln,  Douglas,  Everett,  Winthrop,  Preston,  Berrien, 
Southard,  and  a  score  of  kindred  spirits.  All  save 
Winthrop  are  now  dead ;  and  all  of  them,  then  as  now, 
prove  that  genius,  talent,  and  patriotism  are  in  no  sense 
sectional  or  geographical. 

As  an  observer  and  chronicler  of  events  for  some 
sixteen  consecutive  sessions  of  Congress,  it  was  my 
good  fortune  to  be  familiar  with  public  life  at  the  capi 
tal  of  the  country  fifty  years  ago,  and  an  observer  of  its 
public  men.  I  shall  therefore  speak  of  them,  at  the  risk 
of  being  called  an  "  old  fogy," — to  which  appellation  for 
a  great  many  years  I  have  had  no  objection,  as  old  fogy- 
ism  resolves  itself,  with  me,  into  the  belief  that  it  simply 
means  "  hold  fast  to  that  which  is  good,"  "  cease  to  do 
evil,  and  learn  to  do  well."  In  this  view,  the  kind  of 
men  who  represented  the  Government  thirty,  forty,  fifty, 
and  sixty  years  ago  either  do  not  now  exist  or  the  pub 
lic  service  has  in  these  years  sadly  degenerated  and 
changed. 

"  I  HAD  RATHER  BE  RIGHT  THAN  BE    PRESIDENT." 

Henry  Clay  was  the  chief  among  the  men  in  Wash 
ington  whom  I  knew  both  from  observation  and  study. 
While  he  had  not  the  sententious  brevity  of  Calhoun, 
not  the  solid  learning,  logic,  and  condensation  of 
Webster,  he  had  what  I  may  call  an  aptitude  and 
fitness  for 'public  service  which  eclipsed  all  other  men. 
He  possessed  courage,  earnestness,  conviction,  self- 
reliance,  embodied  in  a  force  of  purpose  and  strength 
of  character  which  made  him,  to  me,  the  one  man  of 
the  Senate,  and  for  a  long  period  of  time,  in  all  re- 


lations  of  personal  politics,  the  foremost  man  of  the 
country.  In  all  that  belongs  to  patriotism,  no  man  was 
before  him. 

I  recall  one  incident  in  the  speech  where  Mr.  Clay 
said,  "/  had  rather  be  right  than  be  President  !  "  The 
old  Senate  Chamber,  now  the  room  where  the  Supreme 
Court  meets,  which,  compared  with  the  present,  was  but 
little  more  than  a  very  large  parlor  in  a  large  private 
dwelling,  was  thronged  in  door-ways,  galleries,  on  the 
floor,  behind  the  Vice-President's  chair,  and  hundreds 
tried  in  vain  to  coax,  force,  or  hold  an  entrance.  The 
chamber  was  then  open  to  ladies.  The  time  was  the 
usual  first  or  long  session  of  Congress,  and  this  one 
preceded  the  nomination  of  the  candidate  for  President. 
The  friends  of  Mr.  Clay  were  intensely  interested  in 
the  speech  to  be  made,  and  fearful  that  words  spoken 
in  debate  would  injure  his  chances  for  the  nomination. 
He  never  had  any  concealments,  and  was  then  as  clear 
in  his  words  and  work  as  the  sun  in  the  heavens. 

Whether  on  or  off  the  floor,  when  he  took  part  in 
debate,  he  was  sure  to  say  just  what  he  thought  of  the 
fire-eaters  of  the  South  and  the  extremists  of  the  North. 
At  the  time  named  I  was  chairman  of  the  Whig 
Young  Men's  Committee  of  the  city  of  New  York, 
and  having  the  right  to  the  floor  (the  rules  are  much 
more  strict  now),  I  ventured  to  whisper  into  his  ear, 
in  an  impulse  of  real  love  for  the  man,  the  deep  and 
general  anxiety  felt  by  the  Whig  Young  Men  of  New 
York,  and  of  the  country,  that  nothing  should  be 
said  by  him  that  could  by  possibility  defeat  his  ex 
pected  nomination.  One  of  Mr.  Clay's  penetrating 
looks,  and  one  that  meant  to  me  what  Milton  calls 
"  expressive  silence  "  in  reply,  was  the  only  answer 
to  my  appeal.  This  speech,  as  the  result  soon  made 
manifest,  was  in  no  sense  a  politic  one  for  a  candi- 


6 

date  for  the  Presidency.  In  the  spirit  of  his  Alabama 
letter,  it  spared  neither  men,  nor  party,  nor  sections 
of  country  where  censure  was  deserved.  For  himself, 
with  an  earnestness  and  honesty  and  force  of  will  in 
voice  and  manner  that  electrified  those  who  heard  him, 
the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  was  :  "I  had  rather 
be  right  than  be  President !  " 

And  when  all  was  over,  and  congratulations  ended, 
"  calm  as  a  summer's  morning,"  he  came  to  the  desk 
where  I  was  standing,  and  in  just  two  sentences  said, 
first  of  all,  "  I  hope  you  were  not  hurt  by  my  silence 
before  I  spoke;"  and,  secondly,  now  that  I  have 
spoken,  "  I  trust  I  have  said  nothing  to  wound  or 
hurt  my  young  friends  in  New  York,  or  my  friends 
elsewhere." 

Mr.  Clay  never  willingly  wounded  foe  or  friend. 
His  nature  was  most  generous ;  and  he  never  gave 
blows  where  they  were  not  provoked,  nor  in  the  ab 
sence  of  an  opponent.  In  open  Senate  I  have  heard 
from  him  the  frankest  apologies  for  words  spoken  in 
the  heat  of  debate.  He  knew  literally  "  how  to  abate 
and  how  to  abound."  In  any  necessary  conflict  he  re 
joined  as  to  a  foeman  worthy  of  his  steel.  In  methods 
of  attack  and  defence  he  was  unrivalled.  When  Mar 
tin  Van  Buren  presided  in  the  Senate,  he  was  often,  and 
from  good-humor  alone,  the  torment  of  the  Vice-Presi- 
dent ;  but,  like  so  many  lawyers  in  conflict  at  the  bar, 
the  hard  words  were  forgiven,  if  not  forgotten,  just 
when  and  where  the  argument  closed.  Mr.  Clay's  ten 
der  of  his  snuff-box  was  always  an  olive-branch  and  a 
peacemaker.  Once,  in  a  manner  all  his  own,  pointing 
"  to  the  Senator  in  the  corner,"  as  Mr.  Clay  called  an 
elderly  Senator  who  had  greatly  provoked  him,  he 
quoted  the  two  lines : 


"  Old  politicians  chew  on  wisdom  past, 
And  totter  on  in  blunders  to  the  last." 

The  Senate  was  convulsed  with  laughter  as  Mr. 
Clay's  opponent,  repeating  the  words  in  part,  said,  suit 
ing  the  action  to  the  words,  "  I  t-o-t-t-e-r,  sir — I  tot 
ter,  sir  !  "  Literally  the  words  did  totter,  if  not  the 
limbs  of  the  much-offended  Senator.  Mr.  Clay  at  once, 
feeling  the  wound  he  had  made,  made  a  graceful  apol 
ogy,  and  restored  good-humor  to  the  Senate. 

The  same  Senator,  after  a  previous  attack,  little 
dreaming  of  the  return  which  would  follow,  was 
obliged  to  meet  with  this  ready  response  from  Peter 
Pindar : 

"  Thus  have  I  seen  a  magpie  in  the  street, 
A  chattering  bird  we  often  meet, 
A  bird  of  curiosity  well  known, 
With  head  awry, 
And  cunning  eye, 
Peep  knowingly  into  a  marrow-bone." 

The  more  hostile  shafts  thus  aimed,  no  matter  how 
deadly  the  point,  usually  fell  upon  a  breast  of  steel 

PECULIARITIES,  PRINCIPLES,  AND  OPINIONS. 

"You  do  not  remember  my  name?  "  said  a  lady  friend 
to  him,  upon  one  occasion.  "  No,"  was  the  prompt  re 
sponse  ;  "  for  when  we  met,  long  ago,  I  was  sure  your 
beauty  and  accomplishments  would  very  soon  compel 
you  to  change  it." 

With  all  Mr.  Clay  was  ever  ready  with  an  answer  ; 
with  men  he  was  strong  and  persuasive  ;  with  women 
bland,  gentle,  and  respectful ;  and  with  children  child 
like  and  loving. 

He  possessed  a  very  independent  spirit,  and  believed 
in  an  independent  judiciary  and  in  all  the  moral  forces  of 


8 

the  common  law ;  and  if  he  ever  departed  from  this  prin 
ciple,  it  was  when  he  once  saved  the  life  of  his  client  in 
defence  of  the  legal  dictum  that  "no  man  can  be  put 
in  jeopardy  twice  for  the  same  offence."  The  oppos 
ing  counsel  took  exceptions  :  the  judge  wavered.  Mr. 
Clay  enforced  his  position  by  precedents  and  authori 
ties  ;  and  his  strong  will-power  made  him  master  of  the 
case,  the  subject,  and  the  decision.  In  another  case, 
where  he  had  saved  the  life  of  an  undeserving  son,  the 
mother,  when  the  verdict  of  acquittal  came,  rushed  into 
his  arms  and  almost  smothered  him  in  embraces  and 
kisses,  to  the  great  amusement  of  the  open  court.  His 
control  over  counsel  and  audience,  all  in  one,  was  abso 
lute,  absorbing,  and  astonishing ;  and  often  this  control 
in  quick  succession  led  to  eyes  bathed  in  tears  and  faces 
wreathed  with  smiles.  There  was  a  charm  in  his  man 
ner,  his  voice,  and  even  in  his  assurance,  for  in  each  he 
was  most  captivating.  Once,  pausing  for  a  moment,  in 
an  argument  before  the  United  State  Supreme  Court, 
and  probably  more  than  once,  advancing  to  one  of  the 
justices,  who  held  a  snuff-box  in  his  hand,  airily  took  a 
pinch,  remarking :  "  I  see  that  your  honor  sticks  to  the 
Scotch  !  "  Justice  Story  said  of  it :  "I  have  been  on 
this  bench  for  thirty-four  years,  and  I  do  not  believe 
there  is  a  man  in  this  country  who  could  have  done  that 
but  Henry  Clay." 

Upon  questions  of  State  rights,  as  defined  in  the 
letter  of  the  Constitution;  the  tariff,  except  in  1820, 
when  Mr.  Webster  was  opposed  to  protection ;  the 
abridgment  of  Executive  power,  in  the  form  of  the 
Jackson  vetoes — the  two  Senators  were  in  accord, 
though  in  early  public  life  they  were  not  of  the  same 
party.  Later  on  in  life,  with  the  same  ambition  for  the 
same  high  honors,  they  were  not  always  "in  harmony. 
In  the  forum  of  debate  in  Congress,  Mr.  Clay  seemed 


9 

to  be  less  a  man  of  study  than  of  close  observation, 
except  when  public  duty  imposed  upon  him  the  task  of 
careful  investigation — as  when  chairman  of  the  Finance 
Committee,  framing,  exposing,  or  defending  a  revenue 
and  tariff  bill.  He  aimed  to  be  properly  informed 
upon  whatever  subject  he  discussed  ;  and  especially  was 
this  true  in  the  court-room,  where  in  early  life  he  was 
a  brilliant  and  almost  uniformly  successful  advocate  and 
counsellor.  In  criminal  cases  he  was  unrivalled,  and  in 
this  practice  he  never  lost  a  case.  Whether  in  the 
Senate,  as  a  leader  in  debate  ;  in  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  over  which  he  presided  ;  or  before  the  bench 
of  judges,  whatever  the  subject  or  the  occasion,  his 
voice  had  a  magnetic  charm  which  compelled  attention 
and  awakened  general  sympathy  and  interest. 

I  have  often  heard  Mr.  Clay,  using  the  language  of 
another,  "thunder  in  anger,  soften  in  sorrow,  tremble 
in  fear,  and  melt  in  love."  He  had  a  quick,  sharp  eye, 
a  keen  and  ready  ear,  and  at  times,  changing  "  from 
grave  to  gay,  from  lively  to  severe,"  he  seemed  to  me  to 
illustrate  all  the  passions  pictured  in  the  famous  ode  of 
Collins. 

The  accomplished  Madame  de  Stael,  whom  Mr.  Clay 
met  at  Paris — first  at  her  own  home,  and  later  on  in  Lon 
don — was  charmed  with  her  American  guest,  and  intro 
duced  him  to  the  Duke  of  Wellington  just  before  the 
battle  of  Waterloo,  which  took  place  while  he  was  in 
London.  This  accomplished  woman  had  taken  the  part 
of  the  United  States  in  the  war  with  England.  And 
when  the  Duke  and  American  commissioner  met  they 
had  their  sallies  of  wit.  The  New  Orleans  victory  was 
used  as  an  offset  for  the  greater  conquest  over  Napo 
leon  at  Waterloo.  Mr.  Clay  did  not  return  to  London 
until  he  was  strengthened  by  the  brilliant  conquest  of 
General  Jackson  over  Packenham,  after  the  articles  of 


IO 

peace  were  signed.  "  Now,"  he  said,  "  I  can  go  to 
England  without  mortification."  Soon  he  left  Europe, 
and  on  September  I5th  resumed  his  seat  in  Congress. 

You  have  perhaps  heard  of  that  famous  political 
firm  known,  more  than  fifty  years  ago,  as  "  John 
Holmes,  Felix  Grundy,"  and  a  name  perhaps  not  to 
be  mentioned  to  ears  polite.  Holmes  was  from  Maine, 
Grundy  from  Tennessee,  and  the  name  of  the  third 
party  in  the  partnership  is  more  familiar  than  either 
of  the  two.  Grundy  was  a  power  with  General 
Jackson,  when  Mr.  Clay  said  to  him,  "  Tell  General 
Jackson,  if  he  will  sign  the  Land  Bill,  I  will  pledge 
myself  to  retire  from  Congress  and  never  enter  public 
life  again  !  "  Mr.  Clay's  land  policy,  I  need  not  say,  was 
not  for  syndicates,  nor  corporations,  but  for  the  people. 

My  friends,  I  have  meant  this  address,  as  you 
may  see,  not  so  much  to  give  the  life  of  Henry  Clay 
in  birth  and  education,  as  to  illustrate  and  interest 
you  in  his  public  character.  Something,  however,  is 
due  to  the  beginning  of  the  end  I  have  imperfectly 
traced.  His  father  was  a  clergyman  of  the  Baptist 
faith.  His  mother  he  loved  with  the  tenderness  of  a 
child.  His  birthplace  was  in  Hanover  County,  Vir 
ginia,  and  in  a  body  of  land  known  as  the  Slashes. 
In  early  and  later  life,  as  success  began  to  crown  his 
work,  he  was  known  as  the  "  Mill-boy  of  the  Slashes  ;" 
and  this  meant  that  in  his  work  he  was  familiar  with 
the  corn,  the  grind,  and  the  meal  taken  to  and  from  the 
mill.  Nor  was  he  a  stranger  to  the  plough,  the  spade, 
the  hoe ;  he  used  them  all.  At  fourteen  he  was  a  clerk 
in  a  drug-store  at  Richmond,  and  as  poor  as  poverty 
could  make  him.  One  of  his  sad  exclamations  in  early 
days  was,  "  I  am  without  patrons,  without  friends,  and 
destitute  of  the  means  of  paying  my  week's  board  ;" 
but  from  the  beginning  he  was  never  without  ambition. 


II 

"  My  inheritance,"  he  once  said  in  public,  as  a  stimu 
lus  to  other  young  men  born  as  poor  as  himself, 
was  "  indigence  and  ignorance,"  and  as  the  fifth  son 
of  a  poor  country  clergyman,  a  hundred  years  ago 
the  parson  was  indeed  "  passing  rich  with  £40  a 
year."  And  books,  fourscore  years  gone  by,  were 
almost  as  scarce  as  ready  money.  But  all  this  time, 
and  onward,  Henry  Clay  went  up  higher,  from  the 
boy  at  the  mill,  the  plough,  the  spade,  and  the  hoe,  to 
the  city  clerk,  and  then  as  the  student  at  law,  earning 
his  way  from  day  to  day.  In  the  midst  of  this  kind 
of  toil,  he  said :  "  I  remember  how  comfortable  I 
thought  I  should  be  if  I  could  make  ^100,  Virginia 
money,  per  annum,  and  with  what  delight  I  received 
my  first  15^.  fee."  And  then  he  adds,  with  true  joy, 
"  My  hopes  were  more  than  realized ;  I  immediately 
rushed  into  a  lucrative  practice."  A  joint  friend,  in 
a  beautiful  poem  to  his  fame  and  memory,  has  said 
of  him  : 

41  He  early  learned  the  mighty  power  of  truth;  " 

and  so,  in  the  end, 

"  Close  to  the  gates  of  Heaven  he  calmly  fell, 
And  there  the  angels  found  him  when  they  came." 

Mr.  Clay  often  reminded  me  of  the  elder  Pitt.  Both 
were  poor  and  of  no  family  importance  in  politics.  Pitt, 
with  an  income  of  ^200  a  year,  and  scorning  all  those 
forms  of  bribery  which  had  made  Walpole  a  power, 
and  Newcastle  rich,  was  the  great  Commoner  of  Eng 
land,  as  Clay  was  the  great  Commoner  of  America. 
Both  of  them  were  equally  patriotic,  faithful  to  the 
nation  and  to  party,  conciliatory  to  friends,  unyielding 
to  enemies,  and  each  at  times  assuming  and  arrogant ; 


12 

but  withal  persuasive,  magnetic,  and  supreme  in  con 
trol.  Their  flashes  of  genius  in  the  forum  were  like 
the  lightning  and  the  thunder  in  the  sky.  In  the 
storms  of  debate,  Clay,  in  the  Senate,  and  in  the  House, 
often  recalled  to  my  mind  Chatham  before  Parliament, 
when,  in  the  War  of  the  Revolution,  he  cried  out  for  the 
King,  and  Lords,  and  Commons,  and  for  all  to  hear, 
"  You  cannot  conquer  America  !  If  I  were  an  Ameri 
can,  as  I  am  an  Englishman,  while  a  foreign  troop  was 
landed  in  my  country,  I  would  never  lay  down  my  arms  ; 
never,  never,  never  !  "  and  it  was  just  this  spirit  that 
made  the  two  men  alike.  Often  they  were  hated  by 
the  party  in  power,  but  at  the  same  time  well  beloved 
by  people  not  bound  to  those  in  power. 

Upon  provocation,  and  sometimes  without  it,  there 
was  a  constant  fire  within,  and  the  fire  flashed  through 
a  pair  of  eyes  remarkable  for  their  brightness.  His 
large  brow  indicated  his  brain,  and  his  tall  stat 
ure,  broad  mouth,  and  singular  face,  which  in  repose 
was  without  real  beauty  of  expression,  gave  evidence 
in  look  and  force  of  the  man  upon  whose  shoulders  it 
rested.  A  homely  face  at  rest,  it  was  full  of  life  when 
Mr.  Clay  was  upon  his  feet  in  debate.  Nearly  all  hu 
man  voices  in  the  same  families  in  some  form  harmo 
nize.  Mr.  Clay's  in  tone  was  all  his  own  for  sweetness 
and  distinctness  ;  it  seemed  to  enter  the  very  hearts 
and  minds  of  those  who  heard  it.  Someone  said,  in 
1842,  when  he  left  the  Senate,  that  his  voice  was 
like  a  benediction  from  Heaven.  The  words  which 
came  from  his  lips  were,  as  a  rule,  born  of  "  thoughts 
that  breathe  "  as  well  as  "  words  that  burn." 

I  recall  many  of  Mr.  Clay's  speeches,  from  1835-36 
on  to  his  retirement  and  touching  farewell  in  1842,  in  the 
Senate.  Like  John  Quincy  Adams,  he  died,  if  not  in 
the  building  of  the  old  Capitol,  at  the  seat  of  the  Fed- 


13 

eral  Government,  in   the  National   Hotel,  in  close  and 
daily  communion  with  it  and  its  representative  men. 

HENRY  CLAY  AND  Louis  KOSSUTH. 

It  was  in  this  his  last  sickness,  in  this  hotel,  that  he 
had  his  interesting  interview  with  Louis  Kossuth,  whose 
visit  to  the  United  States  was  one  of  the  remarkable 
events  in  the  history  of  the  country.  Mr.  Webster, 
when  asked  by  an  eminent  brother  lawyer  in  New 
York  "  What  he  thought  of  it?"  answered  that  the 
effect  it  was  having  upon  the  people  was  "  like  the  vis 
its  of  the  sea-serpent  through  the  country  !  "  No  man 
for  a  few  months  was  more  popular  than  Kossuth,  and 
his  mission  seemed  to  him  a  complete  success,  even  long 
before  he  had  left  the  harbor  of  New  York,  at  Staten 
Island,  and  received  his  enthusiastic  reception  from  the 
bar  in  the  city,  from  the  clergy,  the  people,  and  the 
leading  political  clubs.  His  purpose  was  by  argument 
or  eloquence  to  persuade,  or  through  public  opinion 
compel,  national  interference  in  behalf  of  Hungary 
against  Austria.  When  I  met  him  in  his  chamber  par 
lor,  then  at  Howard's  Hotel,  at  the  corner  of  Broadway 
and  Chambers  Street,  New  York,  with  an  address  and 
contribution  from  the  Young  Whigs  of  New  York  City, 
he  was  reading  Irving's  "  Life  of  Washington,"  and  try 
ing  to  find  words  or  conclusions  where  Washington 
might  perchance  unsay  what  he  had  taught  in  his  fare 
well  address — to  "beware  of  entangling  alliances  with 
foreign  nations."  And  here  let  me  say,  that  for  Amer 
ica  wiser  words  than  these  were  never  uttered  by  mor 
tal  man. 

Mr.  Clay  was  always  in  sympathy  with  true  liberty, 
always  against  despotism,  always  for  free  and  indepen 
dent  States  under  the  Federal  Government,  limited  by 


H 

the  powers  of  the  written  constitution.  He  had  urged, 
and  with  a  power  which  gave  him  the  name  at  the  time 
throughout  the  land  of  "  the  Apostle  of  Liberty,"  the 
recognition  of  the  independence  of  South  America  ; 
and  Bolivar  once  wrote  to  him  :  "  All  America,  Colum 
bia,  and  myself  owe  our  present  gratitude  for  the  in 
comprehensible  service  you  have  rendered  to  us  by  sus 
taining  our  course  with  a  sublime  enthusiasm." 

"  His  words  that  like  a  bugle  blast 

Erst  rang  along  the  Grecian  shore, 
And  o'er  the  hoary  Andes  passed, 

Will  still  ring  on  forevermore  ! 
Great  Liberty  will  catch  the  sounds 

And  start  to  newer,  brighter  life, 
And  summon  from  earth's  utmost  bounds 

Her  children  to  the  glorious  strife." 

We  see  something  of  this  spirit  in  the  Greece  of 
to-day — with  Turkey  at  the  front,  and  England,  France, 
Italy,  and  Germany  placing  the  Isles  of  Greece  be 
tween  the  upper  and  nether  millstone  of  autocratic  and 
despotic  power,  and  where  five  strong  powers  com 
bine  to  crush  the  weaker  nation  for  claiming  her  own 
in  what  belonged  to  her,  and  what  most  of  these  strong 
powers  had  guaranteed  to  her. 

Mr.  Clay  would  have  been  as  glad  to  see  Hungary 
free  as  he  was  glad  to  speak  for  South  America  and 
Greece  ;  but  he  was  never  ready  for  political  interven 
tion  with  foreign  powers,  from  which  the  Government, 
thanks  to  Washington  and  the  wise  international  policy 
of  his  successors,  has  from  its  beginning  been  free. 
When,  therefore,  Kossuth  plead  with  Henry  Clay  for 
material  aid  from  the  Government,  the  latter  dealt 
with  him  as  a  father  with  his  son.  Kossuth  now  for 
the  first  time  felt  that  his  mission  was  a  failure,  and 
from  that  hour  the  sober  second  thought  of  the  people 


assumed  its  proper  supremacy.  The  show  of  the  "sea- 
serpent  "  was  over,  and  he,  who  had  entered  the  country 
like  a  chieftain  leading  an  army  and  sure  of  victory,  left 
it,  if  not  unhonored,  almost  unknown. 

The  English  critics  have  not  been  just  to  Mr.  Clay. 
The  part  he  took  in  the  War  of  1812-15,  as  peace  com 
missioner  with  Adams,  Bayard,  Gallatin,  and  Russell, 
at  Ghent,  gave  him  prominence  abroad  and  at  home. 
He  was  earnest  for  the  war,  and  for  peace  only  upon 
terms  which  the  splendid  commission  of  which  he  was 
a  part  finally  accepted.  The  English  critic  to  which  I 
refer  says,  of  Mr.  Clay's  part  in  the  treaty  of  peace, 
that  "  his  acuteness  secured  for  America  some  advan 
tages." 

Mr.  Clay  was  also  intensely  national  and  especially 
anti-British  upon  the  tariff,  though  Great  Britain  in  the 
period  of  the  early  tariff  was  more  for  protection  than 
for  free  trade.  His  words  in  behalf  of  Greece,  in  a  res 
olution  moved  by  Mr.  Webster,  and  heartily  seconded 
by  Mr.  Clay,  were  in  warm  sympathy  for  all  the  people 
of  the  world  who  were  struggling  for  freedom.  For 
Greece  and  South  America,  when  Secretary  of  State, 
he  secured  the  double  purpose  of  sending  ministers 
from  the  United  States,  and  in  one  of  the  grandest  let 
ters  in  diplomacy  he  awakened  the  sympathy  and  ef 
forts  of  the  Emperor  Alexander  of  Russia,  first  against 
Turkey,  in  behalf  of  Greece,  and,  secondly,  through  his 
minister  at  Spain,  after  nineteen  years  of  war  against 
South  America  States,  in  behalf  of  the  independence  of 
the  Spanish  republics. 

As  Secretary  of  State  under  Mr.  Adams,  Mr.  Clay 
performed  more  labor  and  accomplished  more  in  trea 
ties,  correspondence,  and  practical  work  than  any  of  his 
predecessors  in  the  same  office.  The  charge  once  made, 
of  "  bargain  and  corruption,"  against  him,  because  he 


i6 

preferred  John  Quincy  Adams  for  President  to  General 
Jackson  or  Crawford,  and  because  Mr.  Adams  made 
him  Secretary  of  State,  was  for  a  time,  and  in  his  very 
sensitive  nature,  like  a  dagger  in  his  heart.  Investiga 
tion  proved  its  falsity ;  only  political  malice  started  the 
lie  or  repeated  the  slander.  Both  Madison  and  Monroe 
long  before  had  tendered  him  a  place  in  their  Cabinets, 
and  Mr.  Monroe,  whose  policy  he  had  at  times  opposed, 
and  opposed  in  spite  of  appeals  and  protests,  tendered 
him  the  full  mission  to  England. 

In  all  his  civil  life,  even  with  such  associates  as 
Lowndes,  Calhoun,  Cheves,  Webster,  his  qualities  of 
character,  and  his  work  in  the  Cabinet,  in  the  Senate 
and  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  as  the  minister 
of  peace,  as  the  defender  of  war,  as  counsellor  for  the 
right,  and  the  enemy  of  wrong,  his  services  were  pre 
eminent,  and  his  face  always  at  the  front. 

Two  of  the  leading  incidents  in  Mr.  Clay's  life 
were  his  conduct  in  the  War  of  1812-15,  and,  as  I  have 
said,  his  taking  leave  of  the  Senate,  in  1842.  The 
latter  event  was  a  life-long  memory  for  all  who  were 
present.  In  the  former,  the  two  strong  men  against 
him  were  Josiah  Quincy,  of  Massachusetts,  and  his 
constant  enemy,  John  Randolph,  of  Virginia,  the  two 
men  making  one  of  the  strongest  alliances  in  the 
political  history  of  the  country.  The  Virginian  was 
the  Ishmael  of  the  war,  and  the  Massachusetts  member 
acted  as  the  Thersites  of  the  council  chamber.  There 
had  been  the  embargo  which  reduced  the  revenues 
of  the  country  from  sixteen  to  six  millions  of  dollars. 
King,  Commons,  and  ministers  were  insisting  upon  the 
impressment  of  seamen  in  American  vessels,  and  of 
this  last  wrong  Mr.  Clay  said,  "  No  language  can  paint 
my  execration  of  this  odious  system."  For  a  time  it 
was  only  his  burning  eloquence  that  touched  the  pre- 


I? 

vailing  stupor  in  Congress,  and  compelled  the  final 
declaration  of  war,  the  voting  of  men,  and  the  urgency 
upon  the  sea  of  twelve  line-of-battle  ships  and  fifteen 
or  twenty  frigates.  The  Rubicon  was  now  passed, 
and  the  war  went  on. 

MR.  CLAY'S  TEMPER,  POLICY,  AND  DUELS. 

In  recalling  the  life  of  Henry  Clay,  it  would  be  an 
offence  to   true  friendship  to  forget  that  he  was  twice 
the  antagonist  of  his    enemies   upon  what  is  miscalled 
"  the   field    of   honor."     Once   he    had   received,   and 
accepted,  a  challenge  from  a  United  States  district  at 
torney,  Colonel  Joseph  Hamilton  Davies,  who  became 
offended  because  Mr.  Clay  accepted  the  clientage  of  a 
citizen  after  all  the  lawyers  near  him  had,  from    abso 
lute  fear  or  dread  of  annoyance,  declined  the  service 
of  counsel.     This   United  States   officer  had  struck  a 
tavern-keeper  in    Frankfort,   Ky.,  and  Mr.  Clay,  upon 
a  written  appeal  for  justice,   accepted  the    case.     The 
colonel    argued     his    own    cause,    and    his    words,    if 
possible,  were  worse  than   his  blows.     Mr.   Clay  suf 
fered  no  client,  black  or  white,  bond  or  free,  to  be  in 
sulted.     Often  he    retaliated,  but  always  in  the    spirit 
of  a    man    ready    to  defend  the  right.      The    United 
States    colonel  and    attorney     became    incensed,    and 
sent  a  note  of  warning  to  Mr.  Clay  during  the  trial. 
The    prompt    answer  followed  in  writing,  that,  as  the 
plaintiff's    attorney,  he   would    exercise  his  own  judg 
ment,  and  least  of  all  accept  advice    from  the  enemy 
of  his  client.     This  answer  at  once  called  forth  a  chal 
lenge,  when   friends    interposed,    and    in  time  secured 
a  reconciliation. 

Humphrey  Marshall,  a  leading  Federalist,  which  Mr. 
Clay  was  not,  who  wrote  a  "  History  of  Kentucky,"  was 


i8 

another  of  Mr.  Clay's  antagonists.  Marshall's  special 
vituperation  was  called  forth  by  a  characteristic  resolu 
tion  of  Mr.  Clay — offered  in  the  Kentucky  Legislature 
—which  was  in  the  spirit,  and  almost  in  the  words,  of 
General  Washington  to  General  Knox,  written  in  Jan 
uary,  1789,  asking  Knox  "to  procure  some  homespun 
broadcloth  at  Hartford  to  make  a  suit  of  clothes  for 
himself,"  and  adding  in  his  letter  these  words  :  "  I  hope 
it  will  not  be  a  great  while  before  it  will  be  unfashion 
able  for  a  gentleman  to  appear  in  any  other  dress  !  " 

Mr.  Clay's  resolution  was  that  each  member  of  the 
Kentucky  Legislature,  of  which  he  was  one,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  encouraging  the  industry  of  the  country,  should 
clothe  himself  in  garments  made  in  the  country.  Mar 
shall  denounced  the  resolution  in  the  coarsest  vitupera 
tion.  Following  the  spirit  of  the  times,  Mr.  Clay  sent 
him  a  challenge.  Three  shots  were  exchanged.  Each 
of  the  combatants  were  slightly  wounded,  when  the  sec 
onds  put  an  end  to  the  fight. 

I  recall  this  duel  because  it  grew  out  of  a  measure  of 
public  policy  which  for  many  years  prompted  Mr.  Clay 
to  be  recognized  as  the  father  of  the  so-called  "  Amer 
ican  system ;  "  but  the  American  system  of  that  day, 
let  me  add,  meant  moderate  duties  on  foreign  imports, 
and  the  early  manufacturers  of  the  country  were  con 
tent  with  moderation. 

More  than  once,  and  I  commend  this  evidence  to 
free  traders  and  high  protectionists,  I  heard  Mr.  Clay 
say  that  home  manufacturers  who  could  not  live  on 
twenty  and  twenty-five  per  cent,  duties  on  foreign  im 
ports,  with  the  additional  advantage  which  belonged  to 
the  cost  of  importation  on  the  sea,  and  often  double 
transportation  on  the  land,  should  not  be  supported  by 
the  Federal  Government  in  the  form  of  a  direct  tax 
upon  trade. 


i9 

The  really  sad  surrender  of  moral  principle  on  the 
part  of  Mr.  Clay  was  when  he  sent  his  challenge  to  John 
Randolph.  The  provocations  were  insults  deliberately 
made ;  words  and  manner  were  aggravating-  and  offen 
sive.  John  Randolph  hated  Henry  Clay,  and  intended, 
according  to  the  code,  to  compel  what  is  called  satisfac 
tion  from  a  more  successful  and  more  brilliant  man. 

In  the  House,  with  Mr.  Clay  in  the  speaker's  chair, 
John  Randolph  upon  the.  floor,  and  the  latter  in  his  full 
vigor  of  intellectual  power  and  matchless  sarcasm  and 
invective,  and  what  was  called  "  the  swearing  devil  that 
lurked  in  his  tone  and  look,"  there  was  hardly  room 
for  both.  Randolph  was  among  the  foremost  opponents 
of  the  War  of  1812-15,  and  the  master  of  the  anti-war 
party.  Mr.  Clay  was  leader  and  champion  for  the  free 
dom  of  the  seas  against  impressment,  for  a  larger  land 
force,  though  only  25,000  men  were  asked  for,  when 
8,000  British  troops  were  in  Canada,  and  a  strong  body 
of  men  in  the  fortress  of  Quebec — a  fortress  which,  as 
few  were  then  likely  to  forget,  was  at  one  time  the 
scene  of  the  great  discomfiture  of  American  troops  in 
the  War  of  the  Revolution,  where  Montgomery  fell  and 
the  tide  of  independence  rolled  back. 

The  scourge  of  war,  the  praises  of  England,  and  the 
abuse  of  France  under  Napoleon  were  the  arguments 
against  the  war  before  the  House,  but  the  masterly  de 
fence  of  Mr.  Clay  ended  in  a  vote  of  94  to  34  that  the 
country  was  now  prepared  for  war,  and  the  impress 
ment  of  seamen  sailing  under  the  American  flag  was  de 
clared  to  be  piracy. 

Mr.  Clay's  success  now  was  one  of  Randolph's  many 
grievances,  and  hence,  later  on,  upon  the  grossest  prov 
ocation,  came  the  famous  duel  between  these  two 
eminent  civilians.  Mr.  Clay,  when  the  challenge  came, 
was  a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  where  there  was  no  forum 


2O 

of  debate,  no  opportunity  to  reply.  Mr.  Randolph,  then 
in  the  Senate,  was  the  embodiment,  not  only  of  the  most 
grotesque  eccentricities,  but  the  very  essence  of  bad 
temper  toward  those  who  would  not  court  his  favor  or 
accept  his  advice. 

It  is  always  well,  where  fair  play  and  just  opinions 
are  to  weigh  in  the  balances  of  wise  conclusions,  to  put 
yourself  in  the  place  of  the  person  you  censure.  The 
epithets  which  Randolph  uttered,  when  and  where  they 
could  not  be  answered,  were  the  excuse  for  the  challenge 
sent,  and  for  the  duel  fought.  The  parties  met,  fired, 
and  neither  of  them  was  hurt.  Mr.  Randolph's  body 
was  saved  from  the  fact  that  his  thin  and  attenuated 
form  was  concealed  in  a  morning-gown  loosely  worn 
and  of  capacious  quantity.  The  robe  was  hit,  but  the 
man  was  unhurt.  Mr.  Randolph,  with  characteristic 
oddity,  and  perhaps  I  might  more  justly  say,  timely 
generosity,  fired  into  the  air ;  and  so  the  duel  ended. 
And  after  Mr.  Randolph  had  fired,  he  advanced  to  Mr. 
Clay,  held  out  his  hand,  showed  the  hole  in  his  robe, 
and  said:  "Mr.  Clay,  you  owe  me  a  coat!"  "Thank 
God,"  said  the  Kentuckian,  "  the  debt  is  not  greater  !  " 

Long  after,  Mr.  Clay,  in  an  address  to  his  fellow- 
citizens,  made  a  confession  which  is  worthy  of  remem 
brance,  preservation,  and  obedience.  And  it  is  but 
just  to  say  that  this  confession  came  when  the  duel  was 
both  the  practice  of  men  in  Congress  assembled  and 
the  sentiment  of  the  Southern  people  : 

"  I  owe  it  to  the  community  to  say,  that  whatever 
heretofore  I  may  have  done,  or  by  inevitable  circum 
stances  may  be  forced  to  do,  no  man  in  it  holds  in 
deeper  abhorrence  than  I  do  the  pernicious  practice  of 
duelling.  Condemned,  as  it  must  be,  by  the  judgment 
and  philosophy,  to  say  nothing  of  the  religion,  of  every 
thinking  man,  it  is  an  affair  of  feeling  about  which  we 


21 

cannot,  although  we  should,  reason.  The  true  correc 
tive  will  be  found  when  all  shall  unite,  as  all  ought  to 
unite,  in  its  unqualified  proscription." 

And  Mr.  Clay  spoke  just  as  strongly  against  the 
practice  of  gambling.  Once  urged  to  play  a  game  of 
brag,  on  the  Mississippi,  his  answer  was  "  No,"  and 
this  as  far  back  as  1819.  "I  have  not/'  he  then  said,* 
"  played  for  money  for  a  dozen  years,"  and  he  advised 
his  friends,  one  and  all,  not  to  play  for  money. 

HENRY  CLAY  AND  AARON  BURR. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  who  read  and  think 
seem  to  be  unlearning  some  of  their  old  prejudices 
against  Aaron  Burr.  In  the  War  of  the  Revolution, 
then  a  very  young  man,  he  was  one  of  the  busiest, 
bravest,  and  most  useful  of  its  defenders,  and  this  alike 
with  the  United  States  Army  in  Canada  and  in  the 
States.  He  had  been  a  United  States  officer  in  the  army, 
and  Senator  and  Vice-President  of  the  United  States. 
His  great  offence  was  the  killing  of  Alexander  Hamil 
ton  in  a  duel,  but  not  without  the  provocation  of  hard 
words.  The  worst  crime  charged  against  him  was  his 
intended,  if  not  open,  treason  against  the  United  States. 
The  alleged  offence  was  that  he  was  one  of  a  party,  of 
conspirators  to  divide  the  Union,  and  to  establish  an  in 
dependent  government,  of  which  he  was  to  be  the  chief. 
Mr.  Clay  was  asked  to  be  Colonel  Burr's  counsel,  after 
he  had  been  once  arraigned  and  acquitted  at  Frankfort, 
Ky.,  where  the  judgment,  except  with  the  United  States 
district  attorney,  was  uniform  that  he  was  innocent. 
The  prejudices  against  him  were  strengthened  by  the 
consequences  of  the  duel,  and  he  was  a  second  time  ar 
rested,  tried,  and  acquitted.  Mr.  Clay  a  second  time 
was  implored  to  become  his  counsel.  Before  accepting 
this  unwelcome  service,  he  received  the  solemn  assur- 


22 

ance  from  Burr,  in  writing,  that  he  had  never  taken  any 
measure  to  dissolve  the  Union,  to  separate  one  or  more 
States  from  the  rest ;  that  he  had  never  published  a  line 
upon  the  subject,  through  his  own  agency  or  with  his 
own  knowledge,  nor  promised  a  commission  to  any  per 
son  for  any  purpose  whatever ;  that  he  neither  owned 
•nor  controlled  bayonet,  musket,  nor  any  single  article 
of  military  stores  ;  had  no  design  to  intermeddle  with  the 
Government,  and,  finally,  he  added :  "  I  have  thought 
these  explanations  proper,  to  satisfy  you  that  you  have 
not  espoused  the  cause  of  a  man  in  any  way  unfriendly 
to  the  laws,  the  Government,  or  the  interests  of  the 
country." 

On  this  record,  though  just  elected  a  Senator  in 
Congress,  Mr.  Clay  consented  a  second  time  to  be 
Colonel  Burr's  counsel.  The  United  States  attorney 
submitted  his  second  indictment,  with  evidence,  to  the 
jury ;  and  the  jury  answered  that  the  bill  was  not  true, 
and  added  the  voluntary  address  that  there  was  nothing 
in  the  evidence  to  justify  the  accusations. 

The  verdict  was  received  by  the  people  in  and 
around  the  court-room  with  rounds  of  applause,  adding 
to  the  popular  the  legal  evidence  that  Colonel  Burr  was 
innocent.  Mr.  Clay  shared  in  these  honors  of  acquittal ; 
but  later  in  life,  after  reading  the  evidence  collected  by 
Jefferson,  and  the  letter  written  by  Burr  in  cypher,  and 
transmitted  by  Colonel  Samuel  Swartwout  to  the  United 
States  Army  commander,  General  Wilkinson,  believed 
that  Burr  had  deceived  him  as  to  the  fact  of  his  intended 
treason ;  and  later  on,  upon  receiving  the  tender  of  his 
hand  in  the  court-room  of  the  city  of  New  York,  in  the 
presence  of  bench  and  bar,  openly  refused  to  take  it. 
This  act  was,  at  the  time,  far  more  damaging  to  Burr's 
reputation  than  his  acquittal  by  the  jury  of  any  court. 

In  more  recent  years,  many  who  have  scanned  and 


23 

canvassed  this  evidence  believe  that  Burr's  ambition, 
if  anything,  meant  a  republic  beyond  the  confines  of  the 
American  States,  and  beyond  Florida,  which  had  been 
acquired  from  Spain,  and  beyond  Louisiana,  purchased 
from  Napoleon,  and  probably  a  republic  to  be  estab 
lished  in  Mexico.  Burr,  Mr.  Clay  believed  in  his  de 
fence,  intended  to  seize  first  upon  Baton  Rouge,  and 
then  in  time  upon  the  Spanish  province  beyond. 

In  the  midst  of  the  rage  of  party  spirit  under  Mr. 
Madison,  when  Randolph  and  Quincy  were  the  leaders 
against  Clay,  Florida  was  declared,  by  proclamation  of 
the  President,  annexed  to  the  Orleans  territory  pur 
chased  from  France.  The  Federal  party  insisted  that 
the  territory  belonged  to  Spain,  that  the  proclamation 
was  an  act  of  usurpation,  and  that  holding  the  territory 
by  force  of  arms  was  an  act  of  plunder. 

The  simple  but  masterly  answer  of  Mr.  Clay  was 
that  the  first  ownership  was  in  France,  which  ceded 
Florida  to  Spain  in  1762  ;  and  that  in  the  year  1800,  by 
treaty,  Spain  ceded  the  territory  back  to  the  French, 
which  government,  under  the  treaty  of  1803  with  the 
United  States,  sold  it  to  this  Government.  This  terri 
tory  was  indispensable  to  the  free  navigation  of  the 
Perdido,  the  Mississippi,  and  essential  to  the  safe  ex 
istence  of  the  United  States.  The  commerce  of  the 
Father  of  Waters,  and  the  waters  leading  to  it,  Jeffer 
son  had  the  wisdom  to  see,  Madison —  always  the 
warm  friend  of  Mr.  Clay —  the  forecast  to  hold,  and 
Henry  Clay  the  courage  to  defend,  against  all  the 
sophistries  of  the  old  Federal  party. 

Of  all  the  masterpieces  of  political  wisdom,  the 
peaceful  acquisition  of  Louisiana,  at  the  small  cost  of 
$16,000,000,  was  the  greatest,  and  in  its  results  the 
grandest,  for  the  country  of  all  that  had  gone  before, 
or  has  since  transpired. 


MISSOURI  AND  MR.  CLAY. 

It  was  John  Randolph  who  twice  voted  against  Mr. 
Clay,  and  with  members  from  the  free  States,  to  kill  the 
bill  for  the  final  admission  of  Missouri  as  a  slave-holding 
State,  after  Congress  had  voted  that  Maine  and  Mis 
souri  should  be  received  into  the  Union  upon  equal 
terms  and  under  one  act  as  slave-holding  and  free 
States.  This  was  before  the  duel,  and  when  Mr.  Clay 
was  speaker.  Leaving  the  chair,  Mr.  Randolph  ac 
costed  him  with  this  proposition  :  "  Mr.  Speaker,  I  wish 
you  would  quit  the  chair,  and  leave  the  House  ;  I  will 
follow  you  to  Kentucky  or  anywhere  else  !  "  The  an 
swer  was  that  the  proposition  was  very  serious,  but  that 
he  would  discuss  it  the  next  morning  in  the  speaker's 
room,  where  Mr.  Clay  defended  the  two  compromise 
measures,  one  of  which  was  defeated  by  Randolph's  co- 
workers,  composed  of  the  class  of  men  whom  he  once 
called  dough- faces.  Before  this  interview  closed,  these 
two  men  agreed  to  forget  the  past  and  to  be  at  peace  for 
the  future  ;  but  with  Randolph  this  was  a  moral  impossi 
bility.  At  their  next  meeting  the  Virginian  forgot  his 
promise,  and  the  two  members  neither  spoke  to  each 
other  nor  exchanged  salutations  to  the  end  of  the  ses 
sion. 

All  along  he  had  argued  that  the  adjustment  of  the 
Missouri  conflict  would  in  the  end  elect  Mr.  Clay  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States.  He  had  failed  to  persuade  him 
to  leave  the  chair,  or  to  imitate  the  example  started 
when  Southern  members  met  together  to  resist  the  re 
ception  of  anti-slavery  petitions.  He  had  fought  against 
peace  and  compromise  inch  by  inch,  day  by  day  ;  and, 
beyond  this,  he  had  become  melancholy  and  morose, 
as  he  gazed  for  the  last  time  upon  the  countenance  of 
the  brave  and  beloved  Decatur,  who  had  been  killed  in 


25 

a  duel.  Mr.  Clay  was  assured  by  members  of  the  Sen 
ate  and  House  that  Randolph,  who  still  heartily  hated 
the  Kentuckian,  desired,  in  his  great  excitement,  to  see 
his  antagonist  dead  as  Decatur  died,  and  by  the  same 
code  of  honor.  The  bark  in  this  respect  soon  proved 
much  worse  than  the  bite,  but  the  bite  was  deep  and 
venomous. 

THE  MISSOURI  CONTROVERSY 

was  the  greatest  national  struggle  previous  to  the 
Rebellion.  In  Congress  the  sectional  strifes  from  1850 
to  1 86 1  were  not  equalled  by  the  fiery  debates  of 
1818  to  1821.  Thrice  after  admission  into  the  Union, 
by  the  vote  of  a  previous  Congress,  the  Senators  and 
Representatives  from  Missouri  had  been  refused  the 
right  of  representation.  The  Senate  voted  one  way  for 
the  majority  of  States,  and  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  a  different  way  for  the  majority  of  the  people. 

Business  in  Congress  was  at  a  dead-lock,  and  legisla 
tion  practically  suspended.  By  a  vote  of  83  to  80,  Ran 
dolph  and  two  other  Southern  members  apparently  bent 
upon  like  mischief,  voted  with  the  North,  and  defeated 
the  compromise  report  made  by  Mr.  Clay  as  chairman  of 
the  special  committee  of  thirteen.  The  previous  report, 
made  a  month  earlier,  admitting  Missouri  without  condi 
tions,  had  been  rejected,  and  the  two  Houses  became 
hopelessly  divided.  The  members,  Northern  and  South 
ern,  were  in  a  state  of  temper  that  seemed  to  make  re 
conciliation,  by  joint  majority  of  the  two  Houses,  or  by 
any  concurrence  of  opinion,  impossible.  Senate  and 
House  were  much  farther  apart  than  the  Lords  and 
Commons  of  England  in  1885,  and  since  Slavery  in  all 
its  aspects,  and  especially  the  ordinance  of  1787,  was 
involved  in  the  debate.  Free  States  once  in  the  Union, 


26 

regardless  of  this  ordinance,  it  was  held,  could  introduce 
and  maintain  slavery  at  their  own  pleasure. 

In  the  midst  of  these  contentions,  Mr.  Clay,  whose 
necessities  and  business  at  home  compelled  his  absence 
from  Washington,  was  implored  to  return  to  the  capi 
tal,  and  by  his  long  absence  he  came  better  prepared 
than  if  he  had  taken  part  in  the  storm  that  raged  dur 
ing  the  previous  weeks  of  the  session.  He  was  for  the 
admission  of  Missouri  without  conditions,  as  the  right  of 
the  people ;  but,  as  in  the  period  which  later  on  threat 
ened  nullification,  he  knew  that  neither  threats,  nor 
jealousies,  nor  sectional  and  personal  animosities  could 
force  Missouri  into  the  Union ;  and  he  knew,  also,  that 
then,  as  in  1860  and  1861,  there  were  men  of  hot  blood 
who  talked,  threatened,  and  some  of  whom  meant  to 
establish  a  Southern  Confederacy.  It  needed  now  a 
true  man  and  a  brave  leader  to  direct  the  nation  in  its 
crisis.  Mr.  Clay  was  calm,  brave,  intensely  earnest, 
and  unquestionably  patriotic.  He  had  the  respect  of 
the  best  men  of  the  two  Houses.  When  a  com 
mittee  of  twenty-three  were  chosen  by  ballot,  he  was 
permitted,  and  requested  by  his  fellow- members,  to  se 
lect  this  committee.  His  choice  was  accepted ;  and,  as 
the  result  of  his  patience,  intelligence,  and  the  confi 
dence  reposed  in  him,  he  submitted  the  proposition, 
which  was  adopted  after  brief  debate  by  a  vote  of 
87  to  8 1  in  the  House,  and  promptly  concurred  in  by  the 
Senate. 

The  conflict  was  now  over,  after  an  excitement 
hardly  equalled  in  the  session  when  the  elder  Adams 
was  made  President,  when  Jefferson  defeated  Burr  by 
one  vote  in  the  House,  or  the  more  recently  eight  to 
seven  votes  when  Congress  counted  out  Governor 
Tilden  and  counted  in  Governor  Hayes,  but  without 
counting  all  the  votes  of  States  and  people.  It  is 


27 

hardly  necessary  to  say  that  such  precedents  are  both 
startling  and  dangerous,  and  leave  wounds  that  time 
cannot  wholly  heal. 

What  Mr.  Clay  finally  presented  for  Missouri  was 
the  restriction  of  slavery  to  all  territory  south  of  the 
line  of  36°  30',  and  free  territory  everywhere  north 
of  this  line.  This,  indeed,  later  on,  was  the  spirit 
of  the  compromise  measures  of  1850,  the  support  of 
which  politically  killed  Mr.  Webster,  and  the  failure  of 
which  almost  broke  Mr.  Clay's  heart.  Together,  and 
apart,  they  were  practically  beaten  in  the  Senate.  It 
was  destiny — or  providence,  if  this  is  a  better  word- 
that  slavery  should  come  to  an  end,  and  if  not  peacea 
bly,  then  by  civil  war  and  rebellion ;  and  it  was  a 
double  interposition  of  this  same  providence  that  the 
States  which  provoked  the  war  should  destroy  the  very 
institution  which  caused  the  war. 

MR.  CLAY'S  ANTI-SLAVERY  SENTIMENTS 

were  as  old  almost  as  the  commencement  of  the  century. 
Born  in  1777,  as  a  young  lawyer  at  the  age  of  twenty 
he  found  the  people  of  Kentucky,  his  adopted  State,  en 
gaged  in  the  choice  of  delegates  to  frame  a  new  con 
stitution  for  the  State.  One  of  the  provisions  to  be 
submitted  to  the  people  was  the  gradual  emancipation 
of  the  slave  population.  By  birth  a  Virginian,  he  stood 
where  Jefferson  had  before  led  the  way  in  his  own  Com 
monwealth  as  an  honest,  earnest,  eloquent  friend  of 
emancipation.  He  spoke  and  wrote  for  emancipation, 
but  failed  in  Kentucky,  as  Mr.  Jefferson  had  failed  in 
Virginia.  Later  on  in  life  he  sought  partial  relief  for 
the  existence  and  growth  of  slavery  through  the  Ameri 
can  Colonization  Society,  of  which  he  was  long  the 
president.  But  where  one  born  a  slave  was  sent  to 


28 

Africa  a  freeman,  a  hundred  were  born  for  continued 
bondage.  No  man  ever  spoke  with  more  power  of  the 
vices  of  slavery,  and  of  its  possible  consequences  to  the 
country.  I  have  heard  him  more  than  once  pray — and 
with  all  the  earnestness  of  his  intense  nature — that  he 
might  not  survive  the  American  States  separated  or 
wrecked,  and  the  old  Union  dissolved.  This  result,  as 
he  believed,  was  the  greatest  possible  national  calamity, 
and  death  at  last  came  to  his  relief  eight  or  nine  years 
before  the  temporary  separation  of  the  Southern  States, 
or  in  June,  1852.  If  the  Union  fell,  he  believed  that 
slavery  would  be  the  cause  of  the  downfall. 

The  Constitution,  he  held,  maintained  this  institu 
tion  ;  and  this  was  his  only  reason  for  its  continued  ex 
istence,  and  this  he  would  have  changed  if  he  could,  as 
the  slave  trade  had  been  abandoned  years  before. 

My  limited  space  is  nearly  finished,  and  with  almost 
as  much  unsaid  as  one  who  knew  the  man  would  like 
to  record  as  his  remembrances  of  one  in  voice,  manner, 
and  courage  next  to  Patrick  Henry,  if  not  equal  to  him, 
the  greatest  national  orator  of  the  country.  .  It  was  Clay 
who  said,  when  it  was  proposed,  in  the  years  of  the  War 
of  1812-15,  to  give  certificates  to  American  seamen, 
to  prevent  the  boarding  of  American  ships  on  the  open 
sea  by  British  commanders  for  purposes  of  impressment, 
that  "  the  colors  which  float  from  the  masthead  of  our 
ships  are  the  credentials  of  our  seamen,"  and  he  closed 
this  speech  with  these  memorable  words  :  "  If  we  fail, 
let  us  fail  like  men,  and  expire  together  in  one  common 
struggle  fighting  for  free  trade  and  seamen  s  rights!' 

Then,  as  always,  whether  against  the  alien  and  sedi 
tion  law,  for  freedom  in  Greece  and  South  America; 
whether  for  war  with  Great  Britain,  which  in  1811  he 
said  must  be  a  "  war  of  vigor,  and  not  a  war  of  languor 
and  imbecility,"  or  for  an  honorable  peace  with  the 


29 

mother  country ;  for  a  system  of  internal  improvements 
which  opened  the  way  for  post-roads  across  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  or  for  free  inland  navigation — his  voice  and 
votes  were  for  what  was  wholly  American,  against  what 
was  in  any  sense  alien,  sectional,  or  personal.  He  was 
against  the  annexation  of  Texas  when  annexation  was 
most  popular  at  the  South,  against  what  was  called 
squatter  sovereignty  when  most  popular  at  the  West, 
and  for  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  Southern  States  ; 
and  this  made  him  unpopular  at  times  and  many  times 
in  the  North  and  South,  and  in  the  West  and  East.  To 
be  a  successful  politician  one  must  too  often  be  all  things 
to  all  men.  Mr.  Clay  was  never,  never,  that  kind  of  a 
man  ;  and  hence  his  double  defeat  both  in  nominating 
conventions  and  before  the  people  when  a  candidate 
for  President. 

Mr.  Clay's  fame  is  associated  with  three  great 
national  compromises,  all  now  belonging  to  the  dead 
past.  I  have  named,  with  some  important  facts  in  his 
tory,  the  Missouri  settlement  of  1820-21.  In  the  great 
domestic  trouble  of  1833,  this  "  father  of  the  American 
(protective)  system,"  when  the  duties  on  foreign  im 
ports  largely  exceeded  twenty  per  cent.,  had  them  re 
duced  ten  per  cent,  in  each  of  the  years  1833,  1835, 
1837,  and  1839,  and  one-half  of  the  remaining  excess  in 
1841,  and  all  of  the  excess  at  the  close  of  the  year  1842. 
Such  a  revision  of  the  tariff  substantially  now,  if  the 
strife  between  capital  and  labor  could  be  justly  closed, 
would  restore  peace  to  the  business  of  the  country.  Mr. 
Clay's  peace-offering  and  argument  in  1833,  and  in  1850, 
was  in  brief  in  these  words  :  "  I  am  for  mutual  conces 
sion,  for  peace  and  harmony.  I  want  no  civil  war  ; 
no  sacked  cities  ;  no  embattled  armies  ;  no  streams  of 
American  blood  shed  by  American  armies  !  "  The  war, 
however,  was  simply  postponed  from  1833  to  1861,  and 


30 

the  efforts  of  Clay  in  1850,  with  all  the  strong  support 
from  Webster,  Cass,  and  Douglas,  to  end  the  strife  by 
peaceful  measures,  were  failures. 

To  illustrate  both  the  hope,  and  the  hope  deferred, 
early  in  1848  Mr.  Clay  visited  Philadelphia,  where  he 
was  welcomed  at  the  station  by  more  than  one  thou 
sand  citizens  on  horseback,  and  escorted  to  his  hotel ; 
and  all  along  the  line,  from  the  walks  and  the  public 
roadway  to  the  house-tops,  cheered  by  strong  voices 
from  men  of  warm  hearts,  and  with  a  presence  of 
people  bearing  flags,  and  banners,  and  emblems,  that 
showed  both  love  and  admiration  for  the  man.  His 
figure,  over  six  feet  in  height,  and  now  as  erect  as 
in  the  vigor  of  youth,  recalled  these  noble  words, 
spoken  long  before  :  "  What  is  a  public  man  worth, 
if  he  will  not  expose  himself,  on  fitting  occasions,  for 
the  good  of  his  country  ?  "  In  this  spirit,  and  for  State 
reasons,  he  opposed  Crawford  and  the  election  of  a 
military  chieftain,  because,  in  the  light  of  history,  "it 
was  the  fatal  road  which  has  led  every  other  re 
public  to  ruin  !  "  On  this  same  occasion,  in  this  same 
City  of  Brotherly  Love,  he  was  welcomed  at  Inde 
pendence  Hall,  where  the  people  thronged  the  square 
to  receive  him  ;  and  as  the  women  could  not,  in  such 
crowds,  show  their  admiration,  more  than  five  thousand 
assembled  at  the  Chinese  Museum,  to  give  public  proof 
of  their  respect,  as  the  mothers  and  daughters  of  the 
city.  His  response  was  a  brief  address  on  "  Women's 
real  Rights."  He  did  not,  however,  believe  in  the 
woman's  rights  as  now  called  for  by  the  select  few 
from  the  very  many  women  of  the  present  day.  When 
the  majority  of  women  ask  for  this,  the  majority  of  men 
will  give  what  is  asked  for,  and  probably  not  before. 

A  few  weeks  later,  in  this  same  Chinese  Museum, 
upon   a    question  of  political  expediency   practised  by 


men  who  falsified  their  professions  of  preference  and 
affection,  Henry  Clay  was  defeated,  and  Zachary  Taylor 
nominated,  and  in  the  following  November  elected, 
President  of  the  United  States.  The  shortness  of  his 
term  of  service,  the  inexperience  and  unfitness  for  pub 
lic  life  of  even  this  brave,  successful  soldier  for  such 
a  place  in  the  highest  civil  service,  gave  one  more 
evidence  of  the  uncertainty  of  human  life,  and  of  the 
ingratitude  of  parties  and  people  to  those  who  have 
served  them  best.  .  The  more  recent  tragedies  in  high 
places,  however,  have  left  much  deeper  wounds  than 
all  the  calamities  and  failures  that  had  gone  before. 

MR.   CLAY  ON    HIS   DEATH-BED. 

Mr.  Clay  was  a  long  sufferer  in  Washington  near 
the  close  of  his  life.  Of  the  final  dissolution  he  had  no 
fear,  but  there  was  a  dread  of  prolonged  sickness  and 
physical  suffering.  When  told  by  his  physician,  Dr. 
Jackson,  of  Philadelphia,  after  earnest  inquiry,  what  the 
end  would  be,  the  welcome,  wise,  and  sagacious  answer 
was  that  he  would  pass  out  of  the  world  as  quietly  as  an 
infant  falls  asleep  in  its  cradle.  "  You  give  me  infinite 
relief,"  was  the  grateful  reply,  and  death  had  now  no 
more  terrors  for  him.  He  was  just  beyond  his  seventy 
years,  and  soon,  and  very  soon,  passed  away  the  man 
whose  countenance  showed  intense  vitality,  and  in  the 
midst  of  great  bodily  weakness  the  calmness  of  perfect 
self-possession. 

Long  before  John  Quincy  Adams  had  declared  him 
to  be,  what  I  may  now  repeat,  "  the  unrivalled  orator, 
the  able  and  successful  negotiator  for  his  country  in 
war ;  and  we  may  all  believe,  at  least  all  who  knew 
him,"  he  added,  "among  its  wisest,  bravest,  and  truest 
friends,  in  all  its  years  of  peace,  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end  of  his  public  life."  And  as  the  end  approached, 
the  man  was  ready  for  the  summons. 


32 

"  And  so,  with  an  unfaltering  trust,  he  went 
To  that  mysterious  realm  where  each  shall  take 
His  chamber  in  the  silent  halls  of  death,     .     .     . 
Like  one  who  wraps  the  drapery  of  his  couch 
About  him,  and  lies  down  to  pleasant  dreams." 

If  my    rapidly    drawn    sketch    of  one    of  the    really 
great  men   of    the  country— great   intellectually,    and 
great  as  statesman  and  patriot  by  the  confessions  of  all 
who  knew  him — seems  to  bear  too  deep  or  too  high  a 
coloring,  you   must  pardon  something  to  that  spirit  of 
liberty  which  was  born  of  the  friendship  of  youth  for 
old  age,  to  the  remembrances  of  many  personal  kind 
nesses  and  numberless  courtesies  now  revived  in  the 
years  of  my  own  advanced  life.     These  recollections 
naturally  grow  with  growth,  and  strengthen  with  passing 
years.     But  my  case  was   not  one  by  itself.     It  was  a 
part   of  the   man,   and  I  speak   as  one    of  multitudes 
who  knew,  and  therefore   loved    Henry    Clay.     Such 
memory    never    dies.     In   the   treasures    of  my    own 
thoughts  what  you  have  heard  was  written,  with  one  of 
Powers'  grand   busts  of  Henry  Clay  in  my    library,  a 
picture  of  the  homestead  of  beautiful  Ashland  and  its 
owner  in  my  own  chamber,  and  upon  my  desk,  as  a  keep 
sake,    the    bronze    medallion  bearing  upon    one   side  : 
"  HENRY  CLAY,"  and  underneath    his    face  the    words 
"  Born  April   12,  1777;  Died  June  29,  1852."     On  the 
other  side  his    right  hand  presses  a  shield,  and  on  it 
are  the  words  of  the  compromises  he  proposed,  and  in 
large  Roman  letters,  above  all,  I  read:   "  The  Eloqiient 
Defender  of  National  Rights  and  National  Independ 
ence."     Supporting  the  shield  is  the  one  most  impres 
sive    national  word,  alike  for    the  States,  for  the  na 
tion,  and  for  the  people  who  make  States  and  nations, 
the  word  "  Constitution  "  -that  Constitution  which  is 
the  source  of   our  civil    liberties,  the    defence  of  our 
privileges,  and    the    only  real    bond  of  an    honorable 
and  enduring  American  Union. 


